[mensetmanusman]

That is a common misunderstanding of canonical Catholic teaching about "indulgentia a culpa et a poena".

Keeping the carbon offset analogy, an indulgence in the Catholic sense would be more akin to first making sure you are carbon neutral (all parties are at peace and forgiven/reconciled), then you spend %10 of your salary to go beyond that and offset the carbon credits of the person you wronged.

[joubert]

Instead of sticking with the carbon credits analogy I'll articulate more directly what I understand from reading up on indulgences at https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm

For a sin that has already been forgiven, an indulgence is associated payment you owe that if you didn't pay, you will spend more time in purgatory.

If this is an accurate reading, does it not dilute the meaning of "forgiven"? Does it not amount to a money-making racket at best, or, more probably, extortion?

[klodolph]

You have some good points, maybe you should write them up and post them up where church-goers would see them, like a church door or something.

[pbourke]

“What’s wrong with the church?! We’ve got some theses!! (You’ll never guess how hard-hitting no. 95 is!) <next>”

[eru]

Though, of course, the church door bit almost surely never happened.

[Thorrez]

>Does it not amount to a money-making racket at best, or, more probably, extortion?

The vast vast vast majority of indulgences have no money aspect at all. See the list of plenary (meaning all temporal punishment is removed) indulgences on Wikipedia[1], none of them involve money.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Plenary_indulgences

[mensetmanusman]

From your link:

“ Least of all is an indulgence the purchase of a pardon which secures the buyer's salvation or releases the soul of another from Purgatory. “

One might associate it with helping move an individual from a smaller circle to a larger circle of ethics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanding_Circle

“ Singer discusses the relationship between biological capacity for altruism and morality. He argues that altruism, when directed to one's small circle of family, tribe or even nation, is not moral, but it becomes so when applied to wider circles. “

E.g. charity where you sacrifice your individual goods for the larger community is good for the soul.

[el_nahual]

An even bigger misconception is that indulgences were actually bought on behalf of _someone else_.

They were meant to address a very real problem with catholic heaven/hell theology:

What if I belong in heaven, but somene I love, who I can't possibly imagine spending eternity without, belongs in hell?

Indulgences were originally meant to address this: the party that belonged in heaven could, through their sacrifice, guarantee a spot in heaven for their loved one. It was only later that the "sacrifice" become strictly monetary.

[eru]

As far as I know, indulgences never got you out of hell. They were to shorten your time in purgatory.

[Thorrez]

>An even bigger misconception is that indulgences were actually bought on behalf of _someone else_.

Are you saying it's true that indulgences can be obtained for others or that it's false that indulgences can be obtained for others?

In reality indulgences can be obtained for yourself, or for others, including those in Purgatory. They can't be obtained for people in Hell.

>It was only later that the "sacrifice" become strictly monetary.

Indulgences are not strictly monetary. The vast majority involve no money at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Plenary_indulgences

[mjh2539]

Indulgences for the damned were inefficacious and applied to the Church suffering in purgatory.

[friendlybus]

Until Teztel started selling carbon offsets for dead polluters. An offered coin springs a dead soul from purgatory.

[mensetmanusman]

Sounds like a new ICO opportunity :)

Would be interesting if there were a climate change coin...

oh wait, https://earth-token.com/

[schoen]

The obvious response is that every PoW coin is a climate change coin.

:-(

[tripzilch]

So common in fact, like language, it becomes a prescriptivism / descriptivism thing ...